In the latest version of the WotLK beta drinking a potion now gives you a "potion sickness" debuff that prevents you from drinking any other potions until you rest out of combat for some seconds. Which means that even in very long combats you can only drink one single potion. That has zero effect on solo players, but casters in raids often drink several mana potions per fight.

I don't think this will hurt Alchemists very much. Yes, the demand for mana potions will probably go down. But what few people realize is that you don't actually make money with Alchemy (except for transmutes), the potions you make cost just minimally more than the herbs you need to make them. The real money is in Herbalism. And while Herbalism thus loses some demand for herbs for mana potions, they'll earn lots of new customers: Inscribers. As a bonus Inscribers are less picky than Alchemists, because they don't need one specific herb, but any of a similar level will do.

How raiders will survive without multiple potions is a different question, but they will adjust. Priests already use mana conservation and regeneration talents a lot, and get more of them in WotLK. Damage spellcasters will have to do the same. So don't be surprised if you see a Mage rolling need on some gear with a big spirit bonus. :)
- posted by Tobold Stoutfoot @ 8:04 PM Permanent Link
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Do you hear that sound? It's Blizzard sucking the F-U-N out of the game with needless nerfs.

Yeah no more herb farming fun for 5-10 potions for each raiding night.

They're also improving mana regenerating synergies within a raid. I don't have the full list of improvements, but totems being raid wide is one example. Mana is only an issue for long raid boss fights anyway, and in a 25man environment there will be much more mana being regenerated than in TBC.

This is more like the potion version of the alchemy change that restricted elixirs to battle and guardian elixirs

I'm more worried about the fact that it's a generic sickness rather than specific. So if I quaff a mana potion and then later need a healing pot (or vice versa), I'm out of luck. It's a good way to eliminate chain potting but I think it might be going too far.

Raid bosses is currently balanced around casters chain chugging mana potions on cooldown. This is both expensive and time consuming (since time = money). Bosses can just as easy be balanced around exactly one potion.

I know which version raider prefer. Hint: It's the one that doesn't require raider to farm just to play the game.

I think you misunderstand me. These types of nerfs (any nerf really) sucks the fun out of the game. It may make sense, be balanced, and all that jazz -- but it's simply not fun to get nerfed. Rather than address specific scenarios where abuse occurs, Blizzard prefers to solve the problem by using a shotgun nerf approach that hits not only the problem area, but lots of non-problem areas. And for what reason? So we can stop chain-potting? Please.

Bosses could also be retuned around everyone AFK auto-attacking/shotting/wanding ... but that doesn't make it more fun.

This nerf may have been designed to reduce chain-chugging mana pots but it also removes player options for other types of pots. Potions of Swiftness would become useless if you've already quaffed a health pot in the same fight, for example.

It's also very blizzard in another way: this helps that relatively small percent of hard core raiders, without really helping all those other players locked out of end game content due to other reasons (gear, skill, not having 24 friends handy).

Seriously, when's the last time you've seen "LFM don't care about gear but must have pots"

It's also very blizzard in another way: this helps that relatively small percent of hard core raiders, without really helping all those other players locked out of end game content due to other reasons (gear, skill, not having 24 friends handy).Which relatively small percent we're talking about again? The 40% that have killed bosses in Karazhan, where several encounters are long enough to require drinking several pots?

If anything, this change helps casual raiders more than hardcore raiders. Let's take and example: A casual raider who has 3 hours available to play WoW.

Currently, he has to spend an hour farming consumables, which leaves two hours for raiding. Or he could farm less consumables and raid less effectively for 2½ hours. That's a tradeoff that a hardcore raider doesn't have to make, because he can always just use an extra hour for farming and raid the same amount of time at peak efficiency.

The reduced amount of consumables required means that the casual doesn't need to make that tradeoff anymore. He can spend less time doing "work" (farming) and more time having fun (raiding).

Which relatively small percent we're talking about again? The 40% that have killed bosses in Karazhan, where several encounters are long enough to require drinking several pots?

How many times do I have to repeat that you can't interpret WoWjutsu numbers like that. They track only raiding guilds, not general population. If you are in a guild with 300 members and 10 of them kill Atumen, you're counted my WoWjutsu as a raider, even if you haven't even got a level 70 character.

Less people raid than the general public thinks. Most people who play WoW are people YOU won't see online, you won't see them readin gthis blgo either.They rarely log in, then they play for a couple, log off. Maybe once or twice a week. They are having fun. Instance? Most of them don't know what it is nor entered one at all.

Another comment: If you can't make money with alchemy you have the wrong job :) OF course herbalism/alchemy is the combo but elixier Alchemy specialisation is key as it procs more often than transmute. Transmute specialisation isn't worth the effort as it can proc once per day only while the other oney can proc per flask being made.

How many times do I have to repeat that you can't interpret WoWjutsu numbers like that.At least once more, because one of us seems to have misconceptions on what WoW Jutsu tracks.They track only raiding guilds, not general population.That seems like a smart idea if you want to track raiders.If you are in a guild with 300 members and 10 of them kill Atumen, you're counted my WoWjutsu as a raider, even if you haven't even got a level 70 character.Sorry, but that's completely incorrect. To be listed at WoW Jutsu, your guild has to complete about half of Karazhan, and they have no problem filtering away lowbies and non-raiders. All of this can be verified by looking at the site itself. For example, it doesn't list my alts (Asahan & Sharanor), and all of the level 70 non-raiders are filtered away from the instance-specific lists because they have no loot from those instances.

Shalkis, he meant the small percentage of players who are hardcore raiders. The context reveals the omission.

I can see several upsides to this and very few down. However, it is a global change to repair a specific set of problems that, again, effect a very small percentage of the player base. Global changes to have subtle ramifications that become very important down the road, for good or ill.

I can only assume Blizzard's play testers are doing their best to test this out thoroughly.

Shalkis, he meant the small percentage of players who are hardcore raiders. The context reveals the omission.And I'm saying that this is a good thing for more than hardcore raiders, which makes those figures relevant. This change doesn't just benefit hardcore raiders, it benefits all raiders. Quoting from Blessing of Kings:One interesting thing about this change I found is that a lot of casual commenters are predicting that the hardcore would be unhappy with this change, as it makes the endgame more accessible to casuals (no more farming for pots). Meanwhile, at EJ, pretty much everyone is cheering the change. The point is that a lot of the things that the casuals don't like about endgame, the hardcore also do not like. However, the difference is that the hardcore is willing to put up with these negatives, to do whatever they deem necessary to be successful.

I agree 100% with that. Grinding consumables was not an insurmountable obstacle to hardcore raiders, but it was that for casual raiders. When that obstacle is lowered, it benefits casual raiders more, because now they can access and defeat encounters that required too much consumables. Like old Naxxramas, which was balanced around the assumption that all possible buffs and consumables were in use. That was painful for hardcore raiders as well.

Well, I haven't been in a raid for months, and only ever actively raided with my priest. Nevertheless WoWjutsu lists all three of my level 70 characters as raiders, and, not knowing that I'm only one person and not three, thus counts me as 3 raiders. So excuse me if I don't believe WoWjutsu when it says 40% of players are raiders.

If 40% of the players on my server were going raiding at least once a week in a way that they would consume 5-10 mana or healing potions, my alchemist would know about it. Demand for potions isn't THAT high.

"LFM don't care about gear but must have pots"Actually they require both. Many guilds do require you to have your flasks ready on progression nights, even my casual guild did. Some guilds also require enchantments and gems of a certain level. It was necessary because Blizzard tuned the content for people who went the extra mile - to slow them down.

Lord knows farming was a big part of the reason I stopped. Even though dailies make it a lot easier, I can't stand them either. I mean at least collecting herbs makes some logical sense. But playing Simon?

That's why I'm surprised you can have 6 glyphs from Inscriptions. I would have expected only one glyph active at the same time. It's the same issue, people will be expected to have all 6 slots filled, and Blizzard will tune content for those with the very best 6 glyphs.

The mage was on a welfare raid once, and has one Kara epic. The warrior entered Karazhan once after trickily acquiring a cleared Kara raidID, so he could do a quest in there, but hasn't got any Kara epic.

But what I'm saying is that if you have several characters with Karazhan loot, you're still not several raiders. And if you entered Karazhan once you're not really "a raider" either.

That's why I'm surprised you can have 6 glyphs from Inscriptions. I would have expected only one glyph active at the same time. It's the same issue, people will be expected to have all 6 slots filled, and Blizzard will tune content for those with the very best 6 glyphs.Well.. you can't just use 6 Glyphs of Absolute Uberness, because there are different types of glyphs. Some of the slots are reserved for cosmetic stuff, like a polar bear form for druids or Polymorph: Penguin for mages.